


This Is Not My Beautiful Bed, These Are DEFINITELY Not My Clothes

by DirigibleDetective



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3388418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DirigibleDetective/pseuds/DirigibleDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellana leaves the tavern and doesn't wind up where she planned to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Not My Beautiful Bed, These Are DEFINITELY Not My Clothes

Cullen was a light sleeper, years of training and oppressive nightmares keeping any genuine sleep far from his grasp.

So when the door below him opened on slow, silent hinges, he woke quickly, eyes open wide in the near-total darkness of his chambers. He did nothing but listen for a brief second before slipping out of his bed to pick up the sword leaning against the wall. He could hear the lightest sound of soft-soled shoes on the stone floors, making their way across the room below. Cullen was in the process of deciding whether it would be better to wait for the assailant up here, or to slide down the ladder and initiate an attack of his own when an enormous crash echoed from below him.

 _“Shit, shit, shit…”_  More curses echoed from down below as Cullen relaxed and dropped his sword back against the wall.  _“Who the hell… fuck you, ladder. Who puts a damn ladder up to their bed?”_ He listened as now-heavy hands and feet assaulted the ladder below him, accompanied by an unending stream of increasingly inventive curses, and watched as a dark form peeked up through the opening in the floor.

“Good evening Ellana. Or is it morning? I can’t tell.” Another muttered curse echoed up from somewhere around his feet, and the torch on the wall next to him spluttered to blue-green life. Ellana blinked up at him from the top of the ladder, her elbows resting on the floorboards and one hand still extended out towards the torch she’d so helpfully lit.

“I think it might technically be morning,” she said slowly, resting her chin on her arms. “Though to be honest, I’m not sure I could tell you what day it is.” Ellana leaned her head to the side and grinned up at Cullen. “Hm. Nice view though.”

Cullen was reminded of the fact that he was wearing nothing more than his smallclothes. He frowned down at Ellana. “You’re drunk.”

“Yes!” she proclaimed, throwing both hands up in the air. Her grin never faded as she began to tilt backwards, still perched on the top of the ladder. Cullen quickly reached down and caught her narrow wrists in his much larger hands, pulling her none too gently up to the safety of the well-worn wood floors below his own feet. Why she’d decided to wander to his quarters instead of her own was a mystery.

She giggled and swayed. “That was fun.” Cullen merely sighed and looked her over. She was wearing a loose, soft, black shirt that was at least three sizes too big for her and hung open scandalously low on her narrow frame.

“You look like you raided Dorian’s closet,” he muttered, pulling one shoulder of her shirt back up from where it was starting to slide down.

“That’s funny,” she answered, plucking at the front of the shirt in question. “Because I’m pretty sure this  _is_  his shirt.” Ellana frowned to herself. “I seem to recall Sera spilling an entire mug of ale on me and Dorain and Blackwall arguing over who was going to give up their shirt for me.” She chuckled gently and looked up at Cullen through her eyelashes. “ _Obviously_  that wasn’t even a question. Dorian has  _such_ lovely taste in clothes.”

“Well that would certainly explain why you smell like a distillery, and also why you’re still vaguely sticky.” Cullen sighed again gently led Ellana away from the dangerous hole in the floor. “Let’s get you cleaned up a bit.”

“Oh? And how do you plan to go about that, Commander?” she asked, leaning heavily against him and pressing one warm hand to his chest.

“With water. And a rag,” he replied firmly, noting the dramatic expression of disappointment that crossed her face. He pressed her down to the edge of the bed. “Now sit.” He turned away to dampen a rag in the basin of water, looking over his shoulder when he heard a heavy  _whump_. Ellana had collapsed backwards across the bed, her feet still resting flat on the floor. Cullen released yet another long-suffering sigh and began the gentle process of cleaning the remains of one ill-fated mug of ale off of his unconscious mage.

 

* * *

 

 

“This isn't my bed.” Ellana’s confused voice brought Cullen back to wakefulness a few hours later, soft light filtering through the as-yet unmended hole in the ceiling. He rolled to face her where she lay staring straight up through that hole.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he replied, sitting up on one elbow. She looked over at him without moving her head.

“I have no memory of anything that happened last night,” she muttered, feeling the fabric of the black shirt still draped around her sleep-tousled form. “And this is definitely one of Dorian’s hellishly expensive shirts.” A pained look crossed her face. “And I am most definitely hung over.”

Cullen laughed at her and slid out of bed. “Come on. Let’s get some food in you.”

It was a long way to the tavern for Ellana and Cullen, full of ladders, " _Damn you Cullen and your ladder.”,_  stairs, and bleary glares at the sun. But when they arrived, Ellana smiled in spite of herself and sat down at a table, Cullen bringing over three plates of food. He set the third in front of Dorian’s sleeping, shirtless form with a heavy thunk, earning him a glare from Ellana.

“Urk.” The usually verbose Tevinter had little to offer in the way of conversation. He raised his head from where it had lain pressed in to the surface of the table and squinted at Ellana with open confusion. “izzat my shirt?”

“It is. Not sure how I came to be wearing it instead of you.” She ripped apart a steaming roll and pushed a full third of it in to her mouth. “You’ve got a bit of, drool is it? Right there.” She gestured to the corner of her own mouth and Dorian wiped a hand across his face with a grimace. With slow, pained movements he pulled the plate of food closer to himself and bit in to his own roll with a quiet moan of pleasure. Cullen watched this all in silence, calmly eating his own breakfast.

“Ellana, I’m beginning to feel left out. I haven’t once been invited to join one of your debaucherous parties.” Cullen teased as she dug in to the small mountain of eggs.

“If we invite  _every_  responsible person in Skyhold, who’s going to be there to feed us the next morning?” Dorian asked through a mouthful of sausage. “Somehow I don’t see Cassandra stooping so low as to provide me with such a marvelous breakfast.”

“We’ll just have to make do, I suppose.” Ellana replied. “Consider this a standing invitation to join us the next time the opportunity arises” She planted a kiss on her Commander’s forehead as she slipped out to retrieve mugs of much-needed water. Cullen and Dorian merely stared wordlessly at each other, the latter still consuming food mechanically before cautiously breaking the silence.

“I don’t suppose you know how your woman came to be wearing my clothing?”

“I hear you magnanimously offered it to replace her own after it fell victim to Sera.”

“Ah. Sounds like something I’d do.”

“Bull was watching, wasn't he?”

“I don’t remember, but I’d bet my best shirt that he was.”

Ellana returned with the mugs just as Cullen rose from his seat. “As much fun as this is sure to be, I have work to do.” He pressed a kiss of his own against the top of Ellana’s head. “I’m sure I will see you both later.”

Ellana sat and slid one mug over to Dorian, running a hand through her unbound hair and grimacing as it caught in the mess of tangles that had formed.

“We’re a frightful mess, Inquisitor.”

“That we are Dorian, that we are.”


End file.
